You don't have to look much farther than Pittsburgh Penguins captain Sidney Crosby's numbers this season - three goals, eight assists in 20 games - to see that something's not quite right with the Pens star. And while a variety of possibilities have been raised as to why Crosby's not performing up to his usual NHL All-Star form, a report from Wednesday suggests that issues with Pittsburgh ownership and, specifically, Mario Lemieux, may be behind Crosby's limited production and generally negative body language on the ice.
"But the more and more I looked into it, the more I found out, people with the same sentiments that there's a big falling out between Mario (Lemieux) and (Sidney) Crosby. Now whether that pushes them to move him at some point? Whether he wants to move? That I don't know, " former NHL and Penguins player-turned NHL analyst Matthew Barnaby told fellow Sirius XMNHL host Steve Kouleas on Wednesday, via Yahoo Sports' transcript.
You can hear the audio for yourself here.
Kouleas offers some of those very reasons, parroted in the past by others, for why Crosby could be struggling - coaching staff, chemistry with new players like Phil Kessel, not having won more than one Cup thus far in his career - and Barnaby responded with a couple of as-of-yet unheard possibilities.
"I've heard over coaching, I've heard also after the (2014) playoffs when they lost out," Barnaby said, per Yahoo. "Maybe the personnel isn't right?"
It was reported earlier this season that Crosby, who looked at the time like he was carrying the weight of all the steel in Pittsburgh on his shoulders, was struggling due to "organizational pressure" fueld by ownership paranoia. Whether that meant pressure directly from Lemieux was never made clear. But what is clear is that Crosby, Lemieux and the rest of the Pens organization are clearly struggling to come to grips with the fact that they've been able to capture only one Stanley Cup during the career of a generational talent like Crosby.
And to make matters worse, the team isn't only struggling in the standings this season, they seem to be devolving into a kind of frustration, bordering on crisis. Fellow superstar Evgeni Malkin lamented openly about the lack of hard work and resulting infighting that was occurring, before doing his best to walk those statements back a few days later.
Kessel, talented though he may be, hasn't been the cure-all the team and head coach Mike Johnston were likely hoping for when GM Jim Rutherford acquired him this offseason. And Crosby, with just 11 points in 20 games, has become a poster child for the dysfunction currently plaguing the franchise.
And while there's no evidence beyond Barnaby's suppositions to suggest that Crosby and Lemieux have fallen out, something is clearly wrong with Crosby - a running theme under Johnston and Rutherford - and, by extension, the entire Penguins team.
